America's Torture Disgrace. Destroyed US Reputation, Did Not garner Intel.

Finally, the incompetent, disingenuous leadership of the Bush administration is being called to account for its abysmal record on Human Rights.

These Human Rights abuses have not only damaged the US reputation around the world, the methods employed did not yield good intelligence.



In a recent interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed that, in the period after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration embraced a policy of torturing suspected al Qaeda detainees. Cheney did not refer to the Bush administration's practices as "torture." In fact, he insisted that "we don't do torture. We never have." He did admit, however, that he had supported the waterboarding of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Muhammad. Waterboarding -- a technique in which water is poured over a prisoner's face to simulate drowning -- is considered torture under international law and has been prosecuted as a war crime by the United States. According to Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism expert and former instructor and chief of training at the U.S. Navy's Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school, waterboarding "is torture, without doubt."

Torture Doesn't Work: In a recent story in Vanity Fair, journalist David Rose reports that the conclusion of numerous counterterrorist officials he spoke to is "unanimous: not only have coercive methods failed to generate significant and actionable intelligence, they have also caused the squandering of resources on a massive scale through false leads, chimerical plots, and unnecessary safety alerts."

The use of torture has made Americans less safe. Former Air Force interrogator and author of How to Break a Terrorist Matthew Alexander (a pseudonym) recently wrote that "the No. 1 reason foreign fighters flocked [to Iraq] to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo." Alexander, who used non-violent methods of interrogation to obtain information on the whereabouts of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, argued, "Our policy of torture was directly and swiftly recruiting fighters for al-Qaeda. ... Torture and abuse cost American lives."

Torture Is A Violation Of Our Laws And Values: Arguments about the practical utility of torture distract from the more important point that torture is a violation of U.S. law, and its use represents a significant abdication of the U.S. commitment to human rights. The U.S. federal anti-torture statute, formally known as Title 18, Part I, Chapter 113C of the U.S. Code, "defines the crime of torture and prescribes harsh punishments for anyone who commits an act of torture outside of the United States." Alexander wrote "there's no doubt in my mind" that the tactics allowed by the Bush administration "are illegal." The U.N. Committee Against Torture has been very clear in demanding that the U.S. "should rescind any interrogation technique...that constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, in all places of detention under its de facto effective control, in order to comply with its obligations" under the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Holding Perpetrators Accountable: The Bush administration's embrace of torture marks a significant reversal of decades of U.S. policy. Back in 2006, then-senator Barack Obama said that torture "is not how a serious Administration would approach the problem of terrorism," and declared the use of torture to be "a betrayal of American values." While Vice President-elect Biden didn't rule out future prosecution of Bush administration officials involved in torture, he made clear yesterday that "President-elect Obama and I are not sitting thinking about the past. We're focusing on the future." Whatever legal course is chosen by the new administration to deal with recent abuses, the damage done to America's reputation by the use of torture -- making a mockery of U.S. claims to uphold human rights -- has been incalculable.

President Bush Dodges Shoes, Not Questions

I have to say I was pretty impressed with President Bush's cat-like reflexes when he dodged the shoes hurled at him by a journalist in Iraq (a sign of the utmost disrespect in that country as we know). That said, I was utterly unimpressed by his answers to questions relating to Al Qaeda in Iraq. It is now common knowledge, and a fact accepted by the Pentagon that Al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq until after the US invasion in 2003.



In an interview in Iraq yesterday, President Bush defended the war in Iraq, saying it was "where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand." Raddatz interrupted to point out that al Qaeda was not present in Iraq until after the United States invaded, to which Bush replied dismissively, "Yeah, that's right. So what?"

He continued, "The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand." In the lead-up to the Iraq war, Bush repeatedly and insistently cited a link between Iraq and al Qaeda. When it turned out those links never existed -- and that the Bush administration may have willingly distorted information to suggest that they did exist -- Bush continued to tie Iraq to al Qaeda and the Sept. 11 attacks, even as late as 2007.

Rather than take responsibility for the intelligence failures before the war, earlier this month Bush said cynically, "I wish the intelligence had been different, I guess." He has also repeatedly insisted that Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror," using the claim as justification for the war. Yet, as Raddatz points out, al Qaeda did not exist in Iraq until the U.S. invasion. The Bush administration has finally admitted "privately" that "Afghanistan is now the single most pressing security threat in the war on terror."

Blackwater Guards Called To Account

Blackwater employees, who - unlike US troops - had hitherto enjoyed total unaccountability in their actions, are now being called to account.

US guards indicted over the 2007 fatal shooting of 17 Iraqis used machine guns and grenade launchers against unarmed civilians, prosecutors have said. The guards, from the US security firm Blackwater, were contracted to defend US diplomats. The firm says its guards acted in self-defence.



The five men are charged with 14 counts of manslaughter, as well as weapons violations and attempted manslaughter. A sixth guard has pleaded guilty to killing at least one Iraqi.

The Iraqi government has welcomed the move to hold "criminals accountable".

The killings, which took place in Nisoor Square, Baghdad, have become a central issue in Iraq's relationship with the US and raised questions about the oversight of US contractors operating in war zones.

Witnesses and family members maintain that the shooting on 16 September 2007 was unprovoked.

Bush/ Cheney/ Rumsfeld Torture Approval Hurt US Reputation, Intel gathering

A new bipartisan report from the Senate Armed Services Committee states that approval of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib came from the very highest levels of government.



Prisoner abuse "was not simply the result of a few soldiers acting on their own" but came from former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other top officials, who "conveyed the message that physical pressures and degradation were appropriate treatment for detainees."

Newsweek reports that the administration approved waterboarding on suspected al Qaeda detainees after receiving reports from government psychologists that it was "100 percent effective" in breaking military personnel. In contrast, former interrogator Matthew Alexander recently stated, "When I was in Iraq, the few times that I saw people use harsh methods, it was always counterproductive."

The report concludes that the use of waterboarding "damaged our ability to collect accurate intelligence that could save lives, strengthened the hand of our enemies and compromised our moral authority."

Shinseki Gets the Call

Yesterday, President-elect Barack Obama named ret. Army Gen. Eric Shinseki as his Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), promising "the kind of VA that will serve our veterans as well as they have served us." Shinseki will face one of the country's most daunting tasks: managing an institution already plagued by backlogs, scandals, and inadequate resources, and is increasingly taxed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the press conference, Shinseki spoke directly to veterans: "If confirmed, I will work each and every day to ensure that we are serving you as well as you have served us. We will pursue a 21st-century VA that serves your needs." The nomination of the first Asian-American to the post -- Shinseki, a Japanese-American, grew up in Hawaii -- carried extra poignancy coming on the 67th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Military officials and some veterans organizations immediately praised Obama's announcement. Former Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell called Shinseki "an inspired selection." "He is a man that has always put patriotism ahead of politics, and is held in high regard by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan," read a statement by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.



Shinseki is most famous for publicly contradicting Bush administration officials' overly optimistic predictions about the war in Iraq. In 2003, then serving as the Army's chief of staff, he told Congress that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. troops to secure Iraq. The Bush administration's failure to heed Shinseki's warnings led to a decimation of the U.S. military -- underequipped forces, an over-reliance on the National Guard and Reserves, a dangerous stop-loss policy, and an increasing number troops coming home with mental and physical problems. As University of Michigan professor Juan Cole told the Washington Post, "If Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and [former undersecretary for defense Douglas J.] Feith had listened to Shinseki, there wouldn't be as many wounded veterans to take care of." Shinseki served two combat tours in Vietnam, receiving two Purple Hearts and four Bronze Stars. He has frequently worked with wounded veterans and visited Walter Reed Army Medical Center, referring to it as a "members-only section" since he, too, is an amputee.

Downtrodden by Bush administration. In 2002 and 2003, Bush administration officials tried to sell the public on an Iraq invasion by arguing that the costs to the United States would be almost nonexistent. "Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits," said then-White House adviser Lawrence Lindsey. Bush administration officials not only completely miscalculated the billions the United States would have to spend on combat and reconstruction but also failed to plan for the cost of caring for wounded troops after the war. The Iraq war has seen an unprecedented number of troops who "have been wounded or injured and survived," according to economists Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes. The ratio for Iraq and Afghanistan has been seven injuries for every fatality -- by far the largest in U.S. history -- compared to 2.6 and 2.8 for the Vietnam and Korean wars, respectively. The result of this lack of preparation has been a badly neglected VA, with the appalling conditions at Walter Reed as only the tip of the iceberg. In July 2007, Jim Nicholson resigned as VA Secretary in disgrace, leaving a tenure during which he stood by and even supported the Bush administration's slashing of the agency. President Bush has, in fact, repeatedly objected to large increases in the budget for veterans' medical care. However, Nicholson's departure hasn't cleared up all the problems. Under new secretary James Peake, VA officials have been trying to cover up data on the troubling rise in suicides among veterans.

Challenges. Veterans are suffering the consequences of the Bush administration's neglect. Last year, a Harvard Medical School study found that one in eight veterans younger than 65 is uninsured. Military retirees who are insured are often paying more for medical care than other retirees. Despite the Bush administration's promises to reform the veterans' care system after the Walter Reed scandal, a Government Accountability Office report last year found that delays for disability payments "still average 177 days -- nearly six months -- with no indication that dramatic improvement is in the offing." One of Shinseki's most pressing challenges will be modernizing the VA to deal with the increasing number of mental health troubles faced by soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly 20 percent of returning veterans have post-traumatic stress disorder, but only about half of them seek treatment. Another area where the VA has fallen short is in its treatment of women veterans. As the AP has reported, "Of the women veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who have walked into a VA facility, 15 percent have screened positive for military sexual trauma." Roughly 180,000 women have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and last year, the VA) "treated more than 255,000 female veterans. The number is expected to double within five years."

KBR Gave Troops ice tainted with "Body Fluids and Tainted Remains"

A former technician who worked in Iraq for scandal-ridden contracting company KBR in Iraq has filed a class-action lawsuit saying the company "exposed everyone at Joint Base Balad in Iraq to unsafe water, food and hazardous fumes from the burn pit there." Joshua Eller's suit includes particularly disturbing charges about KBR's indifference to proper sanitization and the disposal of human remain. "



The lawsuit also accuses KBR of shipping ice in mortuary trucks that 'still had traces of body fluids and putrefied remains in them when they were loaded with ice. This ice was served to U.S. forces,'" the Army Times reported. Eller also accused KBR of failing to maintain a medical incinerator, meaning that "medical waste, such as needles, amputated body parts and bloody bandages were burned" in an open-air pit.

Earlier this week, several Indiana National Guard soldiers also filed suit against KBR saying they were "exposed to a carcinogen while protecting an Iraqi water pumping plant shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2003."